One person who would have been astonished by the fight over air conditioning is Lee Kuan Yew, the man who more than any other individual steered Singapore to extraordinary success:
Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.
Quite so.
But back to the fever swamps. . . .
Last summer (the AC issue has a way of flaring up at this time of year; funny that!) the Wall Street Journal reported that:
In France, media outlets often warn that cooling a room to more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit below the outside temperature can cause something called “thermal shock,” resulting in nausea, loss of consciousness and even respiratory arrest. That would be news to Americans who expect indoor temperatures to be cooled to around 75 degrees even when it is near 100 outside.
No moral panic is complete without its superstitions.
And, of course, the climate warriors are out in force, as they were last year. Here, in The Guardian from last July (of course!), is Emma Beddington:
AC is quantifiably bad, but I think it’s also philosophically problematic. Cooling offers comfort, making the unbearable bearable, at least for now. That happens at a community level (no one is really disputing we should keep the very old, the very young and the vulnerable cool), but also individually. When you can buy a personal bubble of coolness and not truly feel the heat, the screaming urgency to tackle the collective issue of a world on fire can recede slightly.
Needless to say, the issue has become highly politicized in Europe.
As an intense heatwave sent temperatures above 40 degrees this week in cities from Bordeaux to Nantes, far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen accused leftist parties and green activists of ideologically opposing air-conditioning at the expense of public health.
“It is absurd to have people die because of the heat,” said the leader of the National Rally party. “If I am elected president, I will put into place a massive air-conditioning plan, starting in places with the most vulnerable populations – hospitals, care homes and schools.”
Far-left leader and rival candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon hit back: “Absolutely not. Installing air-conditioning everywhere would only mean increasing the damage,” he said, alluding to the risk of increased carbon emissions.
The fact that around 70 percent of French electricity is generated by very low-emission nuclear power counts for little, it seems.
Still engaged in its reckless, futile, and counterproductive pursuit of net zero, Britain is addressing the air conditioning menace head on.
Homeowners are being forced to tear out air conditioning from their private properties under climate laws, despite rising temperatures.
Council planning officers ordered residents to remove air-con units over fears they produce too much carbon dioxide, stating they should only be used as a “last resort”.
The net zero clampdown is part of building regulations that state “active cooling” should only ever be allowed when all other means of “passive cooling”, such as opening windows or using fans, have been exhausted…
Widely published advice states planning permission is not required to install air-con. However, planning is required in certain situations, such as in conservation areas, and there are different rules for flats, leasehold homes, as well as shared buildings.
Net zero or property rights. Choose one.
The Daily Telegraph reports that Londoners are at particular risk of this due to the effect of Mayor Sadiq Khan’s “London plan,” which is far from AC-friendly. Michael Bloomberg, a man set on squeezing every bit of joy from the planet (and, through his foundation’s anti-vaping crusade, spreading a little cancer too) has been one of Khan’s more notable backers.
According to one estimate cited by the Daily Telegraph, as few as 3 percent of British homes have AC. That looks too low — it may be more than twice that. Additionally, perhaps some 8 percent have portable units. Even so. . . .
An entertaining twist in this saga comes from a recent study of AC use, which as described in CNN, found that the use of air conditioners “could increase the outside temperature between about 2 and 4 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 Fahrenheit). This impact is especially severe in Europe’s generally dense cities.”
I wonder what the density-obsessed anthill-urbanists who account for so much of “modern urbanism” (another cause, incidentally, supported by Bloomberg’s foundations) would have to say about that?